Interesting. As an old game collector, the faint part of my memory recalls an E.S. Lowe game that used the same principle. As you spun one of their classic plastic roulette wheels with letters instead of numbers, you'd drop in several small plastic balls and develop words from the letter slots they landed in. I think it was called Wordmasters.
Yep. Just spotted info on another website. 1969.
Another example of everything old being new again.